Bewley Homes Golf Day proves a great hit

For the past two years, Bewley Homes has hosted an annual charity Golf Day, raising an impressive £38,530 in aid of the Kent, Surrey & Sussex Ambulance Trust and helping to fund two important life saving projects.

The first is the development of a training simulator for the Charity’s AW169 Helicopter – an aircraft which has been designed specifically by the clinical team at the Kent, Surrey & Sussex Air Ambulance Trust and its aviation partner, Specialist Aviation Services, and is the first of its kind in the world to be certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency as an emergency medical service aircraft.

The second is a year’s supply of O negative blood (a blood type that can be given to any patient regardless of their own blood type) for transfusion in a pre-hospital environment. It involves each helicopter being deployed with a container of four units of blood stored between 2 and 6 degrees. When warmed, using specialist devices, to a body temperature of 37 degrees, the blood can then be transfused within seconds at the scene of an incident. Over the past four years, around 100 patients per annum have had to have a blood transfusion within a pre-hospital environment. It is a service only made possible through the unique partnership between Kent, Surrey & Sussex Air Ambulance Trust, SERV (Service by Emergency Rider Volunteers) and the Henry Surtees Foundation in addition to the William Harvey Hospital and East Surrey Hospital.

Professor Richard Lyon, a spokesperson for the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance Trust, says: “I attended a very serious incident where a nine year old child had been hit by a motorcycle. The patient had sustained major head, chest and abdominal injuries, serious leg fractures and significant blood loss. We performed a blood transfusion to ensure his vital organs had sufficient oxygen before airlifting him to the major trauma centre in Southampton. The child ultimately went on to make an excellent recovery. Had we not attended this incident and provided the pre-hospital treatment that was so crucial, the outcome potentially could have been much worse.”

Andrew Brooks, Managing Director of Bewley Homes, adds: “Helping to give back to the communities in which we all live and work is central to our ethos at Bewley Homes. It is extremely gratifying to know our fundraising initiatives have made and will continue to make such a significant difference to local lives.”